Interview W/ Jeff Rabhan

What do Lil Kim, DMX, Korn, Hanson and Kelly Rowland all have in common? The answer is this guy – Jeffrey Rabhan.

In a career spanning over 20 years in the music industry, Jeffrey Rabhan has worn many hats. Artist manager, music executive, music consultant and now the current Chair of Department of Recorded Music at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, Rabhan has worked alongside some of the biz’s top selling artists. We chopped it up with the industry expert to hear his thought on the current state of the industry. We covered everything from working with DMX, YouTube views to the newest and most controversial signee to the hip hop scene, Trinidad James.

You currently teach at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. What drew you towards this line of work and what’s it like working so closely with Clive? What drew me towards it was the idea of working with young, undeveloped artists. That’s really what it was about and working in an academic environment where you could actually help people learn about the business the right way. I think that’s so often in the music industry, people learn about the music business by either making mistakes. I think that by providing the kind of education and the knowledge that people need in order to be successful in the business, it really is providing a service. That to me is very meaningful.

In terms of working with Clive, Clive is a living legend. To have the opportunity to have his ear and his support is without a doubt a powerful ally to have. It means a lot for our program to have him involved.

Are there any artists who are in the spotlight now who have passed through the institute? Well, it’s funny you should ask. One of our graduates, Elle Varner (she was just nominated for a Grammy for “Best R&B Single”. So that’s very exciting for us. She’s in the spotlight as we speak.

Does she keep in touch? She does. She’s been very supportive of the program.

You’ve worked across the board musically across completely different genres of music. Who have been your favourite artists to work with and why? There are a lot of them that I think have been influential on me. To me, DMX was one of the greatest to work with. To me he’s one of the purest artists I’ve ever met. I loved working with Kelly Rowland. She’s one of the hardest working artists I’ve ever met. I’ve always loved working with Michelle Branch. She’s one of the most talented artists I’ve ever met, one of the best songwriters. I loved working with Jermaine Dupri because he’s one of the smartest artists I’ve ever met. He’s was able to work on both sides of the coin as an executive and as a producer and as an artist. Three sides of the coin I guess you could say. So really, what has attracted me to the different people I have worked with have been different skills, different characteristics that they have that have been influential upon me and the things that I respect about them. That’s always what’s drawn me to particular clients, was working with people that I have a lot of respect for.

Is it much different going from working with an artist like DMX to a group like Hanson? Completely different. *laughs* Every artist has their way of working and a team of people around them and a different set of goals and a different set of attributes. They’re completely different people, different genres, different styles, different personalities and I think that your job as a manager is to really try and read those tea leaves and figure out the best way to use all of those assets to do something positive.

Do any of the artists you’ve ever worked with pass through the institute to guest lecture? We’ve had a ton of people come through. People come in all the time. From Ryan Leslie to Swizz Beats. I always try and get my artists to come in whenever they are in New York. It’s tough to schedule people by thankfully we are in New York and because we are based in New York, we’re very lucky in terms of getting people to come in.

He was recently signed to Def Jam for a $2million deal. He’s only been rapping for 10 months. He really only has one huge video on YouTube, he hasn’t really put out that much music yet (it only has been a few months). In regards to getting a deal with a major, how important are YouTube videos? How did you feel about the snappy signing of Trinidad James? Well, I think a couple things. Number one, because such a huge part of the music now in major label work is centred around research, it’s finding what fans are really into. Research based A&R’s finding what local radio stations are playing, who’s getting a lot of hits on YouTube or who are the new internet sensations. That’s a huge part of our process now because it’s consumer driven success and usually a pretty good sign that the artist will translate to a much wider audience on a national and international level. So I think it’s a very important part of the process for major labels. That being said, there really are not that many success stories that come off the internet. Sure, we all know about the Justin Bieber story but there are many, many other artists that have been signed that are yet to really explode or carry their weight. Now in the case that we’re discussing here, I think that when someone sort of explodes on the internet, it creates a bidding war amongst the labels. The labels all sort of circle around and that creates a situation where an artist can drive up the drive and get a bunch of stronger, more financially meaningful deal. I do believe that as time goes by the internet will become more and more powerful and important in terms of the finding and signing of the creative part of the business. But I think to jump on a relatively new artist, that is a tremendous risk for Def Jam and hopefully they planning on investing a lot of time and development in order to make their investment pay off.

A lot of people believe that the labels are actually pushing these artists on us, but you’re saying it’s the other way around? The labels are following what we are looking at? That’s exactly right. Because what we are looking at is a snapshot into what perhaps we would like to buy or what we would like to support. Or what we believe is the next great thing. It’s sort of the idea of a collective A&R community. Rather than just signing an artist and hoping that everyone will like them, you try and find an artist that everybody already likes. And not only that but if you’ve got the exposure, that means that you’ve also built some awareness too which makes it easier for a record label to get the word out.

Looking at an artist like Kreayshawn who had a huge buzz, everything that she had out got picked up by all the blogs. Her videos got so many views but her album bombed. It only sold 3,900 in its first week. How does something like that happen? A couple things. Number one, press doesn’t sell records. It never has. So to have a lot of positive press doesn’t necessarily translate into record sales. That’s number one. Number two, I think musically you can get a lot of play on radio stations but sometimes records don’t react and sometimes people just don’t respond. Even if the music is found everywhere, it’s on a lot of stations… Sometimes people don’t respond to it and I think that’s what happened in this case.

How can millions and millions of views not translate through into sales? It happens. I think that sometimes it has to do with people just being interested and knowing what’s going on and being a part of it. I also think sometimes digital marketing and internet marketing play a hand in stacking the deck, making it look as though you have more fans than you do. It could be a few or these or people just aren’t interested. They are curious, they see it and they say “Ah well, it’s not for me”. So it’s a rare situation when you have such a huge drop off like that but it does happen.

What advice do you have for artists who want to make an impact in such a heavily saturated industry? There’s a couple pieces of advice. The first is you gotta have great music. It doesn’t matter about anything else. It really doesn’t. If the music’s not great, it doesn’t matter how pretty you are, how well you dance, how creative you are, or how original – it doesn’t make any difference. If the songs are not there, then you’re gonna have a tough time breaking in the music industry. That’s always been the case. Great songs have always driven the music industry and as far as I know that is still driving the music industry. You need great songs and to have a good sense of who you are. You have to know who your audience is and how to speak to them. If you can do those three things – if you can determine who you are, you can determine who your audience is and how to communicate with them, then I think you’re off to the races.

Which current artists are you excited about? I’m excited about Miguel. I think Miguel’s got a real shot of blowing.

Are there any indie artists coming up who you are excited about? There are a couple artists who I think have a really good shot at blowing up. One – her name is Sizzy Rocket and the other one’s name is Patrick Droney. Two up and comers are working on records know that I think have a really good shot.

What’s next for you? That’s a really good question. I don’t know. For the time being, I’m really enjoying my time here [at the institute]. I’ve just written a book which is coming out early next year called “Cool Jobs In The Music Industry” that hopefully will provide a lot of information for high school kids and college aged kids on the music industry and jobs that are available to them. I’m always looking towards the future. I’m working with Michelle Branch who’s putting out a record early next year. I’m excited about that and that’s really it. That’s what I have on the table at this point.

Is there anything else you’d like to add before we wrap it up? I think that’s it. Thank you so much!